Critical reflection

 Module learning:

At the start of the module, we were asked to write a letter to our professor stating why we joined this course, what our weaknesses were and what we hoped to learn from this module. I had mentioned in the letter that my biggest weakness was not being very comfortable or forthcoming when it came to presenting in front of large groups.

At the start of the module, I wasn’t very forthcoming in presenting in front of the entire class but as we went ahead in the module, I slowly started to become more comfortable in presenting in front of everyone due to the ample amount of practice sessions and positive feedbacks given after every presentation.

The prime example of one such practice session was during week 2 when all of us were teamed together in groups of 4. My team members were Elson, Ruth and Clarissa. Each team was given the task of presenting what reflective thinking was. Our team chose to present Dewey’s model of reflective thinking and Rodger’s model of reflective thinking. We were given 10 minutes to gather information and present to the entire class what these models of reflective thinking were as a part of our peer teaching exercise. 

As each of these models had a lot of content, it was very hard to remember all the points and hence I wasn’t very sure of my capability to present to the class effectively. But, we as a team, decided to present amongst ourselves to get a better hold of our nerves. Practising amongst ourselves helped us to remember our points and we were able to present effectively. This practice helped me to present in front of everyone confidently and smoothly. The feedback given after this presentation was that I shouldn’t use filler words like “So yeah” and that I should pace myself more when speaking.

I had used this feedback given to me during my final project presentation. For the final presentation, I had forced myself not to use filler words and I tried to pace myself more slowly. I was able to reduce the use of filler words in my speech but I still have to practice pacing myself which I am sure I will be able to do by the end of my course. 

Project learning:

Our Robotic System course includes a lot of projects that require us to present and write a report together with our teammates as part of our learning assessment. For the successful completion of projects, teamwork is an important skill that everyone needs to develop and employ. In the UCS module, there were many report writing that involved us writing in pairs or groups. This helped us develop our teamwork skills which in turn helped us to produce good reports. 

One such report writing was the final technical report writing where each team choose a robotic system and propose a change within that system to improve the system. We had to write a technical report and present our proposal to the research team.

One of the most important takeaways I learned from this is teamwork skills. As stated teamwork skills, is extremely important and by doing this report together, we learnt to communicate with each other better and helped each other out when one of us were struggling in someplace.

I believe that this has enhanced my teamwork skills and communication skills and this can only continue to grow as time passes by.